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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

The Weekly Maths: Writin’ Irish

Since Notre Dame is the first “real” opponent Michigan plays this year with any actual 2012 data, I’ll be forgoing a themed post and taking a deeper look at the Irish.

At this point in the season there aren’t quite enough results to truly adjust for opponents, but directionally, the strength of schedule is going to be relatively similar between the two programs. This should help offset the fact that until October, it’s difficult to do a quality strength of schedule offset.

Drive Results

Average points expected based on the offense’s starting field position vs actual points scored on those drives. Only drives non-half ending drives in the first half and second half drives within 14 points counted.

When Notre Dame has the ball, both sides have been pretty average. Both the Irish offense and the Michigan defense are less than a touchdown from the the expected output of a typical side. When Michigan has the ball both sides are decidedly non-average. Michigan is nearly doubling the expected output while the Notre Dame defense has allowed four fewer touchdowns than an average team would expect over the first three games.

In the last two weeks Notre Dame has pulled out wins while scoring a modest 20 points. I think Michigan will like their chances if Notre Dame only scores 20 this week. It will be interesting to see which matchup will be key in dictating the outcome, the highly publicized Michigan offense versus ND defense or the quieter matchup of the Irish offense against Michigan’s defense.

Run/Pass Splits

Early season results tend to skew to the offensive side of the ball. In a couple of weeks the opponent adjustment factor will take that but until then, you’ll see numbers that are a bit high and unadjusted.

If you focus on the rankings instead of the absolute numbers you drr two pretty evenly matched teams. Michigan’s rush defense is the key outlier, but the Air Force game drives that to be a (hopefully) temporary outlier.

Defending Michigan’s run game will be a very different sort of challenge than Le’Veon Bell and the All-Two-Stars the Irish shut down last week. The personnel is in place for the Irish, so it could very well come down to an RPS contest between coordinators.

Despite only logging two games worth of countable time, Denard checks in at first nationally in points created with 47, and points created on the ground (including running backs) with 26. His passing has even held up well with 21 points created, a number only bettered by 15 other quarterbacks. Golston hasn’t been bad but he hasn’t set the world on fire either.

I didn’t bother to post the running back numbers. Due to suspensions and slow starts, none of the three prominent backs in Saturday’s matchup have registered much on a national scale.

Notre Dame has spread the wealth around to a variety of receivers, although most Michigan fans are thrilled that there are four guys to list for us, even if Roy Roundtree doesn’t even crack the list. Funchess is the headliner with 13 points created, good for 22nd nationally. What the Irish receiving corps lacks for points created they make up for in success in high leverage situations. Eifert, Toma and Goodman are all top-100 at this point, although the WPA stat can vary wildly at this point in the season.

The Prediction

At this point I have Michigan as a slightly better team but the home field swings the margin to the Irish. While I have been on board with Notre Dame having a strong season, I don’t see them as the favorite Vegas has installed them. This game is a coin flip and as noted above, could swing on a variety of factors. Can Notre Dame contain Denard on the ground without exposing their sparse secondary? Will Michigan push for the pass with the same game plan they’ve deployed in their last three losses? Will there be a breakout game for either the Irish offense or the Michigan defense?

Hopefully Michigan can make it four in a row. Another dramatic finish would be great but a blowout in South Bend would be better. Love Michigan and the points but straight up the numbers call for a narrow Irish win. Hopefully they’re just a little bit wrong.

A prediction is just a prediction. Confidence in an ACCURATE prediction is what causes amateur investors & gamblers to lose their shirts. That, or drinking too much. I remember one time when I woke up shirtless. . .

Um, back to football. A team can be better and still lose, especially if the difference is narrow and the margin of error high. That is precisely the case here. So, if one team beats the other by 17 points this weekend, it doesn't mean the Mathlete was wrong. That said, if the score swings wildly away from a slim-margin toss-up it'll probably be due to a freak factor, like a trash tornado or some untimely fumbles. Home field is an advantage but I don't see it being a difference-maker here.

They are rather similar to us in this regard. If you watch the MSU game, you will see that ND could not sustain a long drive. That was true of Purdue's game as well. We are slightly better than ND because Denard can make big plays more often than Gloston can. OTOH, ND has a better defense than us.

No coach in the country would turn down the chance to have an elite line, but I somewhat disagree with Hoke's philosophy that it's the end-all be-all. Spread teams utilize the slot receiver in place of a tight end to great effect, and that's basically having 1 less lineman in your base play.

Relying on big plays certainly has its downsides, especially if you're concerned about wearing out your defense. But our defense really isn't all that reliable this year, so if the objective is to WIN as opposed to win a certain way, it might pay to prep for 42-38 artillery contest until the D-line gets up to speed.

Mind you, I don't always say that. I prefer to win with a solid defense and ground game as much as Hoke does. However, that's just a preference. In this game, if I was either ND (due to past struggles) OR Michigan (due to ND's weak secondary and strong front) I see a vertical passing game as the best chance to win.

One difference (just in my memory because I havent looked into it) was that Michigan has a bigger, more complex play book than ND, mostly because of us having a more dynamic and experienced qb, while theirs is a RSfreshman. It's looked like Borges works his offenses to pick apart a defense to set up the big plays, either rushing or passing, while ND has had to rely on big plays because ND couldn't get a vertical running game going, and Golson's scrambling was largely contained. (I know Alabama did that to us, but Sparty and Purdue both did that to ND back to back.) An other difference being NDs inneffectiveness in getting to, and then scoring in the Red Zone. In Notre Dames case you look at the receivers completion numbers and they back up that general impression that I got, too. Against Purdue and ND they had 8 guys averaging a first down per completion, some averaging 24ypc, 30 ypc, and 36 ypc, with Golson combining for 467 yards passing, yet only averaging 1 passing touchdown and 20ppg. The majority of their offensive plays seem like short passes and quick rushes, all to the perimeter, with a handful of prayers thrown deep on third and long mixed in.